Saturday, May 24, 2014

Metafilter In Trouble

MeFi is great...as long as you stay away from the social/political discussions.

Sadly, with respect to those issues, MeFi is a cesspool of crazy--and always, always, always lefty crazy. If you ever have the urge to look at any threads there that have any even vaguely social or political content...don't. You can, instead, just say to yourself "that's racist," "that's misogynistic," "that's 'trans*phobic'," "late capitalism," "patriarchy," "rape culture," "objectification," "white privilege," "male privilege," "thin privilege," "Western privilege," "privilege privilege," etc. etc.

MeFi has, sadly, become Tumblr for grownups.

The orthodoxy is the kind of mishmash of leftist pseudointellectual rubbish you'd expect at, say, a coffee klatch filled with people who failed out of MFA programs. MeFi apparently has a reputation for intelligent discussions...but whenever half-baked literary theory can be in any way deployed in the service of goofy left-wing politics...well, it is.

With respect to social and political matters, MeFi has not exactly become a left-wing reflection of FreeRepublic...but...it hasn't exactly not become a left-wing reflection of FreeRepublic... Deviate from the local orthodoxy, and you will be barraged with absolutely terrible arguments, all delivered in a tone that says you are obviously evil and an idiot.

It's an echo chamber in which any deviation from the pretty-damn-far-left orthodoxy receives a flood of largely irrational responses--about half of which will be accusations of some kind of '-ism.' MeFi hates Reddit, but Reddit is approximately half as irrational about politics as MeFi is. You can not, for example, have an intelligent discussion about firearms on MeFi. It simply cannot be done. Do not try.

I really do think it's the echo-chamber effect that's most detrimental. As another MeFite once said to me in MeMail: MefFi has become a lot of lefty academic wannabes virtually fist-bumping each other over how liberal they are.

It really is an ugly sight.

Personally, I try to stay away because I feared that it was pushing me to the right. Given my own intellectual vices, being around too much crazy of one particular type tends to drive me in the other direction. Sometimes too far in the other direction...